KUALA LUMPUR, June 12 — The FTSE Bursa Malaysia (FBM KLCI) is expected to trade within a range of 1,570 to 1,600 points next week as investors will likely be focusing on the number of vaccination doses administered daily in the country, said Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd economist Adam Mohamed Rahim.
As at June 10, the number of jabs administered daily stood above 150,000 jabs for three consecutive days.
“The sustainability of such vaccination trends is crucial to ensure that the country is approaching herd immunity and a faster journey to herd immunity will translate into the reopening of business activities on a larger scale.
“Downside risks to the FBM KLCI is the news that Saudi Arabia has unwound all its voluntary production cuts which could drag oil prices lower,” he told Bernama.
Adam said that looking ahead, investors will be focusing on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting from June 15-16, whereby policymakers will update their economic forecasts for the first time since March, particularly projections for inflation and policy rates.
“Meanwhile, the tone by the US Federal Reserve will probably be slightly less dovish than in April.
“We expect the chair to say that the committee has started discussing a progress-dependent tapering plan while also emphasising that action will require much more progress,” he added.
He noted that other countries which will be holding its policy rate decision meetings include Indonesia which will be on next Thursday.
“On the economic data front, there will be no releases for Malaysia while countries such as India, Singapore and Indonesia will be releasing its exports growth for May,” he said.
In the short trading week just ended, the FBM KLCI fell 3.29 points to 1,575.16 at Friday’s close from 1,578.45 a week earlier.
Bursa Malaysia ended the week on an easier note for the third straight day, weighed down by selling pressure in blue-chip counters.
The healthcare-linked counters tumbled after the country’s vaccination programme kicked into high gear.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the FBM Emas Index was 14.61 points lower at 11,503.19, the FBMT 100 Index declined 18.42 points to 11,187.16, the FBM Emas Shariah Index erased 91.97 points to 12,636.33 and the FBM ACE shed 157.23 points to 7,643.07, and the FBM 70 declined 5.48 points to 14.934.43.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index soared 108.10 points to 15,252.78, the Plantation Index contracted 70.31 points to 6,699.49 and the Industrial Products and Services Index inched down 1.05 points to 192.33.
The Energy Index shed 12.11 points to 832,58, the Healthcare Index gave up 40.06 points to 3,026.01 and the Technology Index fell 1.38 points to 79.38.
Weekly turnover slid to 22.95 billion units worth RM13.02 billion from 36.95 billion units worth RM19.82 billion recorded in the previous week.
Main Market volume dropped to 15.23 billion shares valued at RM11.04 billion from 24.2 billion shares valued at RM16.35 billion.
Warrants volume gave up to 1.06 billion units worth RM139.07 million from 1.64 billion units worth RM180.66 million.
The ACE Market volume went down to 6.65 billion shares valued at RM1.83 billion from 11.10 billion shares valued at RM3.55 billion. — Bernama
